One Last Time

"Be a good boy," said my mother. "Stop playing cricket in the graveyard with you likkle hooligan friend. I don’t want to hear that you trying to see duppies by washing you face with rice water."

I didn’t want to disappoint my mother, a God-fearing woman, who left Jamaica ten Christmases ago to work as a hospice nurse in Miami, comforting the soon-to-be dead. I'd been a good boy until last week when she came home in a box. So who could blame me (and I know she would forgive me) if I tried to see her one last time.

From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp

Geoffrey is the author of Garvey's Ghost

Alma's Journey

I'd always known about my husband's cheating, but when he was home, he was good company. Now he'd left.

Was I losing my mind, too?

"Leave Miami," my daughter had said. She’d just given birth to my only grandchild. "You can start over with us in Orlando."

What was she was thinking? She knows I've never been more than thirty miles from home.

I looked down. The purse I thought I'd lost was between my shoes.

Picking up my purse, I couldn’t wait for the train doors to open fully—my daughter cradling my granddaughter on the brightly lit platform.From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp

Geoffrey is the author of the YA novel, Garvey’s Ghost. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the Inter-American Campus of Miami Dade College.